Cybersecurity Attack Attempts More Than Doubled in 2023

Cybersecurity attack attempts more than doubled in 2023, increasing by 104%, a new report by Armis has found.

The paper looked into the cybersecurity landscape and identified areas businesses should look at to protect themselves from bad actors.

Utilities and manufacturing were identified as the most at-risk industries, reporting a 200% and 165% increase in attack attempts respectively. 

The rate of attempts peaked in July, with communications devices, imaging devices and manufacturing devices experiencing intensified targeting during this period. 

“Armis found that not only are attack attempts increasing, but cybersecurity blind spots and critical vulnerabilities are worsening, painting prime targets for malicious actors,” said Nadir Izrael, Armis’ CTO. “It’s critical that security teams leverage similar intelligence defensively so that they know where to prioritize efforts and fill these gaps to mitigate risk.”

Ongoing geopolitical tensions were identified as a catalyst for cyberwarfare, with industries such as manufacturing, education and public administration seeing particular threats from Chinese and Russian hackers.

Legacy systems were also found to prove a particular weak spot across businesses, with older Windows operating systems found to be 77% more likely to experience an attack than the newer models. 

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Armis said there were more than 65,000 unique Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) discovered in 2023 and wearable devices had the highest percentage of unaddressed CVEs (93%). 

“Blueprints like this report are invaluable as they help teams focus limited resources on efforts with the greatest impact,” said Curtis Simpson, Armis’ chief information security officer. “Using hindsight and analyzed data could allow CISOs to focus 2024 efforts on segmenting legacy technology, prioritizing exposures of greatest significance, and utilizing AI-driven technologies that can assist security teams with defending and managing the attack surface in real time.”